Article published on May 11, 2016.

Sadly Paul Torday died before finishing his last book, but his son has completed it and so expertly that you can’t see the join. It’s a very enjoyable political satire, with many twists and turns, well-plotted and well-paced and I nodded knowingly on quite a few occasions, as it skewers political correctness and political self-serving with some biting and acerbic comments.

It all starts when a barn owl flies into the windscreen of a car driven by a Conservative MP, and the ramifications of this unfortunate but unavoidable accident have far-reaching consequences. A simple enough premise but a pertinent one at showing how quickly such a small incident can spiral out of control. And there’s a bit of gothic fantasy thrown into the mix, which blends in surprisingly well in an otherwise realistic novel and seems perfectly plausible in a strange sort of way. What a loss Paul Torday is to us.

Mandy Jenkinson
Personal 4
Group 4

The Death of an Owl by Paul Torday and Piers Torday
W&N 978-1780222264 hbk

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